


My beloved's mistress

by UMsArchive



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 13:29:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18801295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UMsArchive/pseuds/UMsArchive
Summary: “I don't think you chose.”OR Laurent and Jokaste's last conversation shows they have more in common than he thought they had.





	My beloved's mistress

**Author's Note:**

> First fanfic after like a year. Wow. Trying to get back into it.

“I don't think you chose,” Laurent said.

“Oh no, that I truly never did,” Jokaste turned to say, quite quizzically as she finished her note, her expression more than bitter - rather petrified. “I have always had the belief that there is one meant for each of us, and I've always known I'm not Damen's. I guess I just hoped his would maybe not show up.”

“Why did you never think he would be yours? Surely there had been more hopeful times? Blissful times?” Laurent said, trying not to let the jealousy in envisioning such times between Damen with someone else show. Surely, after he was gone, there would be another, maybe more beloved to his lover than himself. Yet he still disliked the idea that he couldn't at least hold the whole of Damen's heart just for the time being, just until he would be too gone to care.

 

“Because mine has died long before.” Jokaste sighed, her glance on him yet distant, like freshly polished glass on a building otherwise falling apart. She took her seat on the horse Laurent had provided for her with much more skill than he had expected in the refined lady before him. 

Once again, she looked down at him, yet again with no more visible emotion, except perhaps the smallest hint of resignation, “When I first realized Kastor's intentions, I was just wary. When your uncle’s men showed up, however, I knew I had to risk anything before I let it happen again.”

“Let another man you loved die?” Laurent asked cautiously, trying to piece the puzzling nee information he was receiving. 

“Let another man I loved die by your uncle's machinations.”

Laurent eyed her quizzically, not understanding it, or maybe just quite not the whole of it entirely. After all that emptiness and defeat, there was something else in Jokaste's eyes entirely, something that called for common resentment, justifiable if a former lover of hers has fallen by his uncle's greed, like many others had, but there was something more to it-

“Did you know I am from Delfeur? My features should show some contrast to the dark feature of all Akielons you've met this far, at least.”

But Laurent couldn't agree to the conscious knowledge of it, in spite of matching his facial expressions to show that sentiment. He's been so jealous, so consumed with the fact that there was somewhat of a match of his physical beauty out there, the kind that would impede his lover from finding any special newness in his own, that he'd never considered it an ethnical coincidence. Paleness of features were Veretian traits, after all, although all around brightness was considered its finest, boasted by (at least within the noble families circle) only a few ‘blessed ones’; because weren't the golden shine of the sun and the blue of the sky itself the colours of Gods?

“Border duty is a Crown Prince's duty,”Jokaste went on, her voice faraway again, almost mechanical. “And the border of Vere used to be much further off. Down to the border of my own family's estate. Ideal for the Crown Prince to reside. Until the border itself started shrinking in, of course,” she nearly smiled, although there was no humour in it. 

Laurent's eyes narrowed, and then grew bigger, his eyebrows staying furrowed throughout. 

“You might've judged me, falling for his killer, weren't it for your own unique circumstances in the matter..,” Jokaste trailed off. She wasn't even looking him in the eye anymore. She didn't look sad, even. Just absent. "The Regent knew. That's why he was trusting me to have a part in this."

“Auguste,” was as much as Laurent could weakly acknowledge for the moment. “You-,” he started.

“It doesn't matter anymore. Just make him pay if you get the chance. I have no more cards to play. I only have my daughter. And I need to get her back. It's all I can hope for.”

Laurent just nodded, not knowing how to, and not wanting to acknowledge that he would fail as well, not knowing how to cope with the fact that he felt like he ought to apologise for it to this woman that he had been so long despising. 

Not that Jokaste gave him the chance. Thankfully. As soon as she finished talking, she and her horse turned away, going slowly, definitely as to not make too much noise within camp. Soon, she would start galloping. Soon, the knowledge of this fragment of his brother would be well out of his reach. 

He walked back to his sleeping place  
absentmindedly, trying to remember the least of mention of this dalliance during Auguste’s stays at the border. But that had been long ago. Before the war. Back when Laurent would shut up any mention of ‘silly’ romance and girls Auguste fancied, during their many sleepovers. 

Did he really payas much attention as he thought he did to Jokaste's feelings?

Did he really pay as much attention as he thought he did to his brother's feeling? 

Maybe he was as cold and self centred as they say.


End file.
